In the mid-1260s in Paris, a dispute raged that concerned the relationship between faith and the Augustinian theological tradition on the one side and secular leaning as represented by the arrival in Latin of Aristotle and various Islamic and Jewish interpreters of Aristotle on the other. Masters of the arts faculty in Paris represented the latter tradition, indicated by the phrase "double truth theory." In 1269, Thomas Aquinas wrote the polemical work On There Being Only One Intellect, Against the Averroists (...) (De unitate intellectus contra averroistas). Thomas is intent on countering two views: first, that intellect is not a faculty of the soul that animates our body, and second, that there is a single intellect existing separately that suffices for all people. Brief as it is, this work puts into play all the significant strands of Thomas's teaching on man - historical doctrinal, philosophical, and theological. It is a valuable source for discussing Thomas's views on the relationship between Aristotle and Christianity and puts to rest the misleading claim that Thomas baptized Aristotle." The introduction places the work historically and sketches the controversy to which it was a contribution. Part 2 includes the Latin Leonine text and McInerny's translation. Part 3 analyzes the basic arguments of Thomas's work and provides a series of interpretive essays meant to make Thomas accessible to today's readers. (shrink)

In this paper I take a closer look at Fr. Georges Florovsky’s original view on the relation between philosophy and theology. I argue that he tried to formulate an approach based on patristic experience and opposed to the dominating secular paradigm of philosophy. In some sense he wanted to reverse the traditional account. As Teresa Obolevitch aptly suggested, he wanted to replace the principle fides quaerens intellectum by the rule intellectus quaerens fidem. In that first default case the faith (...) needs to be justified or proved by the reason, in the second, unobvious one, the faith has an absolute priority and illuminates itself the natural thought. According to Florovsky, philosophy should not attempt to ground the theology, formulating arguments for the existence of God or proving the coherence of theism, but rather should accept theology as a fundamental premise and then develop a new, non-secular account for the old philosophical topics. (shrink)

Christian theology conceives of ‘sacrificium intellectus’ to account for the message of Saint Paul that he will “take every thought captive to obey Christ”. Human insight gives way to the revealed truths of religion. In modern western cultures to explain the natural world has become the domain of science, and the imposition of collective rules of how we should live was shifted to democratically elected parliaments. In Germany legislation of bioethical issues is often justified with reasons that violate standards (...) of cognitive rationality. Is this another case of sacrificium intellectus? The Federal Constitutional Court refrains from the control of legislative arguments by conceding a broad margin of appreciation for the legislator. People have, however, a right to justification; they must not be subjected to arbitrary legal power. While the practice of democratic rule may seldom comply with the expectations of ‘government by discussion’, it is neither likely to gain acceptance as ‘government without discussion’. To impose legal force on the basis of false arguments and unsound reasoning is not a legitimate sacrificium intellectus, it is an intellectual scandal. (shrink)

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias,1 Abelard distinguishes the form of an expression2 (oratio) from what it says, that is, its content. The content of an expression is its understanding (intellectus). This distinction is surely the most well-known and central idea in Abelard’s commentary. It provides him with the opportunity to distinguish statements (enuntiationes) from other kinds of expressions without implying a diference in their content, since the ability of a statement to signify something true or false (verum (...) vel falsum)3 cannot be found in its content. More precisely, Abelard distinguishes statements both from complete expressions (orationes perfectae) that are not statements but rather questions, requests, commands, etc. and from incomplete expressions, that is, mere word strings (orationes imperfectae), such as homo albus. These kinds of expressions, according to Abelard, do not differ in the understanding they present but in the way they present it. (shrink)

This study shows how St. Augustine of Hippo in his works on grace identifies the concepts of intellect and grace. It recommends this concept of "intellectus gratiae" as a key to Augustine's theology as a whole.

Gottlieb Söhngen (1892-1971), fue profesor de teología fundamental en la Universidad de Munich desde 1947, habiéndose contado entre sus alumnos el joven Joseph Ratzinger, más tarde Papa Benedicto XVI, quien elaboró sus tesis de doctorado y habilitación bajo su dirección. En el presente artículo se considera el modo en que Söhngen interpreta la mediación entre ciencia y sabiduría, fe e intellectus fidei en la tradición platónicoagustiniana y en Tomás de Aquino, así como la relación entre la ciencia teológica y (...) sus conclusiones. Söhngen destaca los contrastes, así como la riqueza complementaria de una y otra aproximación. Aún si su interpretación de Tomás de Aquino es fragmentaria y en parte deudora de una lectura que había de ser enriquecida por la investigación de las décadas siguientes, cabe destacar el valor de su análisis y de algunas de sus intuiciones, por ejemplo, respecto de la relación entre fe y teología. La interpretación de G. Söhngen se enmarca en su programa de “unidad de la teología”, entendida como una síntesis fecunda de revelación y método científico, filosofía y teología, categorías de pensamiento metafísico e histórico-salvífico, humanidad y cristianismo, en miras la tarea siempre actual de dar razón de la fe y de su diálogo con la cultura. (shrink)

Aquinas’ so-called “Intellectus essentiae Argument” for the distinction between being and essence is notoriously suspect, including among defenders of Aquinas’ distinction. For the paper in this volume, I take as my starting point the recent defense of the argument by Fr. Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Fr. Dewan’s project is unsuccessful. Pointing out some shortcomings in his readings allows me to take up his call to highlight the “formal” or “quidditative side” of Aquinas’ metaphysics, in this case in regards to the (...) proofs of the “real distinction.” Accordingly, the second half of this paper sets forth a way in which the famous “Intellectus essentiae Argument” of De Ente et Essentia 4 can succeed as a proof of the real distinction. Aquinas’ argument presupposes the prior real distinction between essence and supposit or individual substance. Esse is the ontological component that makes true our judgments that substances actually are: Obama exists. By contrast, this “truth-maker” cannot be predicated of humanity, although it is in Obama as really distinct from him. If Aquinas’ reasoning in this most contentious of his proofs can be saved, so, perhaps, can most of his other proofs. (shrink)

Objetiva-se com este artigo uma breve investigação sobre a relação existente entre Fé e Razão, especificamente no que toca à compreensão do intellectus fidei e da ratio fidei enquanto desdobramento temático. De acordo com a Carta Encíclica Fides et Ratio, a Fé e a Razão se assemelham a duas asas com as quais o espírito humano se eleva à contemplação da verdade. O desejo de conhecimento da verdade e, por conseguinte, de Deus e de si próprio é apontado como (...) uma vocação divina colocada no coração do homem por Deus. Embora as questões de fé possam passar por um tratamento racional, a fé possui a sua inteligência própria, específica não se limitando a esquemas relativos à razão demonstrativa, científica ou discursiva. (shrink)

A imagem de que restrições do mundo às nossas crenças e enunciados não são internas ao pensamento parece motivar a separação entre verdades de razão e verdades de fato. Esta separação parece ser crucial para entendermos argumentos em favor de certas versões de externismo. Neste texto, depois de considerar como pode ser feita a separação entre verdades de fato e verdades de razão, apresento uma distinção entre duas formas de externismo e defendo uma delas. Termino recomendando uma específica abordagem, holista (...) e externalista, da relação entre nossos pensamentos e o mundo. (shrink)

If a thomist philosopher wonders how we get the idea of the infinite being, or why the act of being implies no limit, he will understand immediately what Polo intends by saying "mental limit" and its abandonment. The principles of such ab andonment are habitual and active thinking. That Theory of knowledge justifies the fact that we really know that the act (esse) is the fundamental of being (ens) and the judgements and discourses spreading out from the transcendental notion of (...) being. (shrink)

One of the key doctrines of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is his definition of truth as _adaequatio intellectus et rei_. The aim of this study is to make clear that the medieval doctrine presents the essential meaning of the term 'truth'. It also throws light on the much discussed continuity between medieval and modern thought.

The article juxtaposes modern skepticism stating lack of the criterion of true beliefs about transcendent reality with respect to their contents, but accepting the assumption about existence and cognoscibility of those contents on the one hand, and — after M. F. Burnyeat — ancient skepticism understood as one that questions this assumption on the other. The doubt as to existence of beliefs — resp. propositions as contents of beliefs — is a link joining ancient skeptics with Wittgenstein. Their skepticism is (...) not - as modern skepticism - an epistemological position, but an ontological one — nominalism — questioning existence of universals that are the conditions of meaning and hence the conditions of truth of propositions. This is why the ancient dispute concerning the truth was in fact a dispute over the problem of universals, i.e. over existence of constant rules deciding which ways of connecting the subject and the predicate in a proposition are right and which are not. Realists referred to such rules, sophists denied their existence, and skeptics stated that without having such a rule at their disposal they do not ha-.: a basis for deciding the dispute between realists and sophists. This does not have much to do either with so-called correspondence concept of the truth or with the modern understanding of conceptual realism talking about \"ideal paradigms\" or \"common properties\" of things. Today\'s typologies of philosophical positions do not fit antiquity. Ch. S. Peirce\'s and D. Armstrong\'s arguments lead to the conclusion that Plato was a... nominalist in the modern meaning of the world. P. T. Geach\'s and N. Wolterstorff s analyses allow stating the same about St Thomas Aquinas. This places under the question mark the statement that the latter could be an advocate of the generally ascribed to him correspondence theory of truth, which also cannot be derived from Aristotle\'s philosophy without any doubts. (shrink)

If a thomist philosopher wonders how we get the idea of the infinite being, or why the act of being implies no limit, he will understand immediately what Polo intends by saying “mental limit” and its abandonment. The principles of such abandonment are habitual and active thinking. That Theory of knowledge justifies the fact that we really know that the act (esse) is the fundamental of being (ens) and the judgements and discourses spreading out from the transcendental notion of being.

"De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas" from Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), sanctus, doctor Ecclesiae catholicae, theologus italianus et philosophus mediaevalis.

This contribution examines two related points in relation to Aquinas’s understanding of contemplation, which is a sorely neglected topic in scholarship. First, after having outlined that the final act of contemplation culminates in an intellective, simple apprehension of the truth, I will examine how this act relates to the three operations of the intellect (grasping of quiddity, judgement, and reasoning) Aquinas identifies in a number of places. Second, I argue that his view of contemplation as simple insight is significantly indebted (...) to Neoplatonic sources; therefore, we must pay attention to the way he introduces Neoplatonic elements into his Aristotelian framework. I conclude this contribution by suggesting some reasons—of a theological nature—why Aquinas would have been drawn towards a non-discursive or “intuitive” notion of contemplation. (shrink)

This article examines the third objection of Chapter Five of the opusculum De unitate intellectus of Saint Thomas. This section offers a summary of Thomist gnoseology and the most important arguments regarding the unity of the intellect. It also represents a true milestone in Western Philosophy, by specifying the object of intellection and the distinction between id quod intelligitur and in quo intelligitur, fundamental themes in the context of moderate realism in comparison with the other currents of the theory (...) of knowledge. (shrink)

O artigo busca reavaliar a tradição interpretativa do Tratactus de Intellectus Emendatione, propondo uma outra maneira de ler a primeira obra de Espinosa.

Trata-se de uma investigação sobre a teoria dos primeiros princípios da razão prática na obra de Tomás de Aquino. No centro dessa teoria está o termo “sindérese”, cujo conteúdo foi elaborado nas discussões da filosofia e da teologia medievais, a partir de sua menção na Glosa de Jerônimo a Ezequiel. Tal termo designa um conceito que apresenta um caráter inovador dentro da teoria da ação moral em comparação com a ética aristotélica. Afinal, Tomás de Aquino o entende como o hábito (...) dos primeiros princípios da moral, equivalente ao hábito dos primeiros princípios teóricos de Aristóteles. Dessa forma, o interesse é compreender como o conceito de sindérese é recebido e desenvolvido na filosofia moral de Tomás de Aquino através da análise das três questões tradicionais: de sua natureza, de sua infalibilidade e de sua extinção. (shrink)

This paper examines Spinoza’s De Intellectus Emendatione from the standpoint of its place in the rationalist canon, and also with respect to certain lines of feminist thought. It concludes that Spinoza’s wholism, lack of interest in skepticism, and insistence on simples are not inconsistent with a variety of feminist concerns. The commentary of Genevieve Lloyd and Harald Hoffding is alluded to, and notions taken from works of contemporary feminism are cited.

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